Advocacy groups throughout the conservative commentary ecosystem have pushed to get these leagues on record about transgender athlete participation, without success.
Now, these groups are moving beyond just trying to get athlete eligibility questions on record. XX-XY Athletics, the sports apparel group that has used Cunningham’s comments as a way get its brand in front of cameras at WNBA games, is suing Colorado in court saying its state anti-discrimination law prevents the company from marketing its apparel using trans athletes’ deadnames and misgendering them deliberately. The company is at least partially bankrolled by a prominent conservative couple in Colorado with deep ties in Republican politics. The company’s face and CEO, Jennifer Sey, a Bay Area resident, was a national champion gymnast before she gained a following online arguing against COVID school closures and vaccine mandates.
Two things can be true. Conservatism requires a boogieman to distract from the other heinous shit they’re doing.
That doesn’t detract from the harm they’re doing to the distraction.
And when you’re campaigning, you have to choose your messaging carefully. Even if you want to stop all of the atrocities happening to the boogieman, changing the conversation away from it can be a good strategy. If you react, you give them talking points and keep it in the news cycle.
El-Sayed did the right thing when he said that it’s silly that we’re discussing who can play what sports instead of talking about the economic and health care crisis. It’s taking power away from the boogieman that has literally nothing to do with them and shifting the focus to a topic that actually affects the most voters.
The whole country needs to be shoved to the left before trans rights are cemented. It’s deplorable that it’s like that, but it means that it might not be the best strategy to make it the focus of messaging at this point. If they lose more ground by keeping it in the spotlight, it hurts trans people even more.
I know it’s frustrating and demoralizing, but just because it’s not the main focus doesn’t mean work isn’t being done to protect you.